Politics and religion are considered bad subjects to discuss in polite society, because people get so passionate about them both.
Politics is all about opinions, power and greed, and politicians are the biggest liars on Earth. Funny thing, but that’s exactly what religions are all about too and the priests and ministers lie just as much. In politics, people believe that one way of doing things is better because people they voted for as their leaders tell them so. In religions, it’s exactly the same.
Very few people study politics and politicians, and they know almost nothing about the subject. What they do is pick someone who tells them things they want to hear and fervently believe from then on that this person or these people are absolutely right and all the others are wrong and should be voted out of office.
It’s the same with religions. Once indoctrinated into one particular religion, all others become Wrong and Bad and Doomed To Hell, and whatever the priests or pastors say is true, must be true.
People are mentally lazy and mostly very stupid. Even intelligent people are really stupid when it comes to politics and religions. Perhaps one in every 10,000 will actually stop and think for theirselves. All the rest folllow blindly like sheep.
It’s a funny thing about truth. It’s the truth that makes us angry. Let’s say little Susie has small feet and pimples on her face. A kid yells, “Ha ha, Susie Bigfeet”, and Susie just laughs. But if the kid yells “Susie pimpleface”, Susie gets mad and cries.
An insult doesn’t anger unless there’s truth in it. Lies don’t upset us nearly as much as truth that we don’t want to hear. So when I point out that politics is a load of crap, people get mad. The same as when I point out that all religion is falsehood, manipulation and myth. It’s true. Everyone knows in their heart that it’s true, and they get mad.
I say everyone knows in their heart, because they do. We are all born knowing truth, being able to distinguish right from wrong. It’s part of being born a human being. What perverts that natural born ability is what adults teach us. Growing up, we see adults lie and cheat, sneak and steal, use drugs, abuse themselves and others, make poor decisions, and those are our teachers, those are the people we learn how to act and think from. We learn to value our opinions above not just the opinions of others but above the truth itself. When truth and teachings conflict, we follow the teachings because all children trust adults to lead them.
This is why we believe in politics and politicians, religions and priests. Not because we’ve found the right path that leads to enlightenment, but because we were misled literally from birth. Muslims are murderous and raise their children to be murderous, in a murderous faith, and these kids grow up looking upon Christians and Jews as people undeserving of any decency or respect. Christians and Jews grow up believing that they have the One True Path as well. Religion is a disease that’s passed from one generation to the next, and political beliefs are exactly the same.
Both politics and religion are nothing but confused jumbles of opinion. As the Buddha himself once said, “Beware the thicket of opinion”. So of course, after his death, the opinion that he was some sort of divine, supernatural being grew and became the religion of Buddhism. With priests and all.
Well, I am the religious type.
Or maybe I shouldn’t say “religious type.” Over the years and after decades of being active in churches, I’ve given up on churches for a lot of reasons. My parents did the same when they reached their 60s. I won’t go into the reasons — except to say that all of us in this family got fed up to our eye teeth with the cattiness in the body of church members. This family decided that religious institutions sucked. In fact, my mother once said, “If you get a liberal preacher to say words over me when I’m dead, I’ll sit up in the casket and slap his face.” I did manage to find a preacher who was conservative and of whom my mother approved in all respects, so she was spared from having to sit up in her casket.
So, now my faith is very private. I do devotions at home, but not on an obsessive schedule. Furthermore, I have ZERO problem with those of no faith. As my father used to say, “I mind my own business. Your soul is your business. I have enough to do taking care of my OWN soul.”
I rarely darken the door of any church — except for one church here that asks that Mr. AOW attend the July 4th service, a service that honors active and inactive members of our military.
What started me on the path of seeking the truth about religion and things spiritual was exactly what you’re talking about. I GOT the teachings of Jesus, yet here were all these others at church, kids and grownups alike, who called themselves Christians and yet were bullies, crude and self-righteous, all the things that made a person anything BUT a Christian. People said they believed but when we believe something, it shows in how we act.
When I got older and began the study of religion, the more I learned, the more I realized how the teachings of all the great religions have been twisted and distorted, stories borrowed from earlier religions and ancient myths. The facts behind religions have been buried, smothered under the centuries and millennia.
So I gave up on religion and set out to find God on my own. Eventually I did, there is a “something” in our Universe that is unconditionally loving, and can be a force in our lives if we let it. This “something” isn’t a person, doesn’t take sides, has no gender and never once turned anyone into a pillar of salt. But it can guide, and solve problems that I can’t solve, if I let it.
I’m not an atheist, though I used to be. I simply found the difference between true spirituality, and religion.
Black Sheep,
Thanks for responding.
Then, we’re pretty much in the same place.
You know, I do know of a few churches that I actually like. BUT it’s the self-righteous and catty folks there that I simply cannot abide.
Organized religion has been so perverted over the many centuries. I’m speaking of Christianity when I type that in.
God is a loving God, but I cannot image that He isn’t disgusted when He “looks down” and sees what humanity — especially those who claim to be His followers — have become.